Filmmaker’s Spoof on Hollywood's Reprehensible Standards of Beauty Goes Viral (VIDEO)

By Kris Coombs , Christian Post Contributor

January 11, 2012|5:52 pm

Filmmaker Jesse Rosten pokes fun at the excessive use of airbrushing technology in commercial advertising with a hilarious new short video, which has already gone viral on the video sharing site Vimeo.

The funny short video advertises a new “breakthrough formula to look the way you've always dreamed - Photoshop by Adobe.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, the mock commercial has received 790,000 hits since its debut on Monday.

The two-minute video uses three models to advertise the latest “beauty product” in before and after shots, accompanied by a voice over discussing the benefits of “Photoshop by Adobe,” and the tagline “This commercial isn't real, neither are society's standards of beauty.”

Rosten uses footage from other popular advertisements and magazines to show the gross retouching of popular celebrity women like Beyonce, Keira Knightley, Britney Spears and Freida Pinto. The ads used the image manipulating software Photoshop to alter the women’s complexion, weight, facial features and anything else deemed counter to the industry’s unrealistic ideals.

“Use this breakthrough formula to change hair, skin color, brighten eyes, whiten eyes - even adjust your race,” the voiceover says facetiously.

“You don't have to rely on a healthy body image or self-respect anymore - now that's the power of Photoshop,” the female voice over adds.

A U.K. couple started a campaign last year to pass a bill to regulate the digital retouching of models in advertisements and magazines following a study that discovered some 80 percent of women felt images of female celebrities and models in the media made them insecure, Mail Online reported.

The mock commercial comes after the Advertising Standards Authority in the U.K. banned two L’Oreal advertisements featuring excessively airbrushed stars Julia Roberts and Christy Turlington, following complaints by Liberal Democrat Parliament member Jo Swinson, who said that airbrushing causes a false impression of beauty.